Injury's bigger wakes and longer lines

Yes, I know bigger wakes and longer lines = more air time. I would like to know how many of us that have hurt our knees or hurt ourselves were out past 70 feet with a bigger wake. I blew my knee out at about 80 feet. But is it worth it to ride that long and get hurt or ride a little shorter and slower to stay healthy and ride more. I have slowed the boat down and shortend my rope some and it seems like I still have the same amount of time in the air. Just a a thought.

line length doesn't lead to injuries. if you're using line length to fix lack of fundamentals though, then you're doing it for the wrong reasons and you just might get hurt.

btw, you are waaaaaaaaaaaay too analytical. i hope you're not this way the next time we ride, or i'll have to bitch slap you quiet! just go out, ride and have fun!

Yeah, I seriously doubt there is a link between line length and knee injuries. You are just as likely to blow out your knee at 80ft. as 70ft. This sport is deffinately not for the weak-kneed

damn your always bitch slapping me around when we ride. Joe as for the fundamentals you are correct. It just seems that people are riding way out before they have the fundamentals down. And they are using the big wakes as a crutch. If you gave them what we started out with they would look at us like we were crazy. You haft to admit you can get away with alot less fundamentals with a big wake and longer line to do a backside roll then no wake and a shorter line (you better have your poop down to do that). I just see so many friends getting hurt from big wakes and longer lines. BTW when are you heading up here.

My knees are not the best, and lately I've been riding around 20 mph on a 65 foot rope. It's easier for me to go W2W without coming up short
(ouch!) I don't even need to go out wide to make a cut toward the wake. For me it's just as fun and I'm trying to learn the proper technique.
Plus the wakes on my boat are pretty wide (Maristar 230)because of the wide beam.
At my age (42) I need to be more cautious than the 20-somethings out there.

imo its easier on your knees with a longer line cuz you cant take stuff as far out into the flats.

Easier on the knees with a longer line. I agree. Lots of hang time going w2w.

Yes and No! I hurt my back riding at 85 ft, which, at least with me, requires more focus on switch TS takeoffs vs riding at 80 ft. When I hurt my back I was pushing it and riding as BIG as I possibly could. Felt damn good for the first 20 minutes...then hurt like hell for the next few months. I was actually injured in the air and landed the 360 cleanly, then threw the handle and coasted to a stop.

So these days I keep everything pretty much wake to wake, and the longer line length still gives me enough time to complete my simple trick list.

Squid makes a valid point here. When we started riding (we're both old schoolers), 21 mph, 55 feet and an ankle high wakes were the norm. A good amount of skill was required to go big. Today, with monster wakes, faster speeds, and better boards, just about anybody can go big. With more people at a lower skill level really taking things up, there are going to be more injuries.
I think that slowing things down and shortening the rope is not a bad idea before you have all the fundamentals down. I often shorten the rope and slow down to learn new things. As a rule of thumb, if you cannot clear the wake easily both toeside and heelside, then your rope is probably too long.

Damn, there ya go Matt read my mind. The sport is growing so fast that it seems in the last two years we have seen 80 feet and a huge wake the norm. I was out with some people this weekend. They were fighting getting across at 80 and the wake was huge. I took the weight out slowed the boat down and put them at 60. Then they were clearing the wake like nothing both sides. Plus they were super stoked. Then they ganged up on me and told me there was no way I could do the tricks I do with no weight and a shorter rope. I took a run and hit every thing like normal. Guess what I am trying to get at that you don't need a big wake and long line to do tricks. You might have that hang time but if something goes wrong up there will you be able to ride next time out.

Longer helps me cause I can go wake to wake.

I think the increase in injuries is due to the wake size and people not being ready for them. I seriously don't remember seeing people wreck as hard (including myself) back when the wakes were small.

Fundamentals are extremely important. I have my 15 year old nephew riding with the back tanks empty and the line at 55ft. He goes huge heelside but can't quite clear toeside. I told him he can't let the line out or increase the ballast until he clears the wake toeside.

I know way too many guys that barely clear the wake ts but still ride 80 feet. I know pros that just started riding at 80

Interesting post. Been around since 2000. More injuries and more serious injuries than before. I agree with the mooch: in the past most of us were behind cheesy io's. Now, most people are hitting pro level wakes.

I know I'm done with wakeboarding after blowing up two discs in my neck and spending 35k on artificial discs. Son still rides and loves it; me, I drive! But I wonder about the future of this sport.

wow steven, didn't know you weren't riding anymore. sorry to hear that.

as to the point discussed - i would agree that riding faster with bigger wakes leaves us open to more injury, especially if we're not ready for it. but i also agree that riding longer helps you go w2w.

i was out sunday behind a nautique (a wake im not that familiar with). i REALLY had to back off on my edge to take my tricks w2w, and i was riding at 75ft. of course the nauti wake is slimmer than most, but still.

on my friend's tige that i normally ride behind i've taken cody d's advice and slowed down the boat while riding at 65ft. like squid i am still able to do all my tricks.

(Message edited by deepstructure on September 21, 2005)

I was cleared to ride from ACL surgery about 6 months ago... I now ride wake to wake, however i ride 80-90ft at 24-26mph.

As far as i'm concerned it doesn't matter at all about your landing, hang time, trick, etc. The only thing that determines an knee injury is your landing.... So now i keep these rules in the back of my head.

a) try to land wake to wake
b) land ass first
c) on those tricks you think you may be able to pull out, bail, who cares, if you land it'll look like shti, and no-one likes landing tricks like shti.
d) have fun, don't ride to learn new tricks, ride to have fun

I don't hit double-ups anymore, not saying i couldn't but there aren't any tricks i can do off a dup that i can't do wake to wake.

Blew my ACL behind an I/O, 65' @ 21mph. bruised a bone in the same knee on a smaller wake at a slower speed. Now ride @ 75'-80' @ 24.5-25mph behind a SAN, less injuries each passing year.

Seriously don't think it's the speed or the size of the wake that's doing it. Riders have been getting injured since day 1. We just notice it more, because there are more of us (people we know) who ride. More riders = more possible injuries. For me, I can only think that I now know my limits, stretch everything before each set, and keep the supporting muscles worked up.

Well I rode all summer landing all the basic inverts, spins, a mobe, and some 540s at 60ft 23mph. No injuries. My biggest problem was riding the Ricky G for the first month of the summer. My knees were killing me. After I switched to the prodigy platinum, the aching went away. I think a lot of injuries could be prevented if people would stop trying to ride like the pros. I know its nice to have a $50k+ boat with 2500+ lbs of ballast and rope length of 85ft. But you don't need it for wakeboarding, and if your not a pro, chances are you are not at the skill level to be riding at those conditions.

Hey, Chris:

Yeah, I'm done. Life and some wakeboarding caused the discs between my vertbrae at two levels to wear down to almost nothing. Once that happened, the nerve roots were compressed and that causes a wee bit of pain.

Here, the doctors wanted to fuse three vertebrae. Heard about artifical titanium discs (they're about the size of your thumbnail and have a ball and socket arrangement so mobility is preserved). Unfortunately, this work is in the clinical trial stages here but in Germany they've been doing this for a decade or more . . . so now I'm 35k less wealthy but feeling great.

Heard that Darin Shapiro torched the discs in his lower back (very scary that) so my guess is he might be the first high profile wakeboarder to get artificial lumbar level discs. Really tricky surgery at the lumbar level.

Bottom line: get an x-ray so you know how much you've worn down vertabral discs and can know when to quit. Metallica's bass player (head banger type) quit that band a few years back because of disc degeneration in his neck. I've been there: Shapiro's got his hands full because medicine can't do much about nerve compression at certain levels-- because the discs are behind the heart or unreachable (neck is easy). So if you run into problems there, you're basically a dead person who can see as spinal problems can really incapacite you.

And the landings in this sport can be flat out brutal on the spine even when you don't fall.

Sorta wish I would have blown out my knee 2 years ago. Would have preserved my spine!

I ride at 70' and 23mph behind our Malibu LSV. I don't really use more ballast than stock and people, but I don't see how doing so would result in more injuries. Some of the speed, at least for our boat, seems to be dependent on certain factors. For instance, without the wedge and lots of people on the boat I ride at 21.5 or 22mph. To me, the "water speed" seems exactly the same (as you can tell after riding a certain speed for a long time whether you are over or under that speed) so I'm not sure why the speedometer would differ so much.

A lot of it I think depends on the way you ride. At 23mph with ballast and the wedge, I can cut in really mellow and just go w2w. I've had friends ride behind out boat with the same set-up (wedge and ballast) as me but riding at 21mph. In my opinion, they seemed more likely to get hurt than me because they had to fly into the wake with a long cut just to get w2w because of the width and slow speed...and this was at the same rope length that I ride at. So they are traveling higher (sometimes) and a much farther w2w distance (and probably a faster water speed) even though they were running 2mph slower boat speed than me.

All that to say that I agree people have gotten carried away with loading 4K of weight in their boats, but it is the rider that is going to get him or herself hurt...not the wake size.

Leo, how much weight to you use in your response? wedge?
Can you ride further back than 60 feet or does it get washy? I agree with you on the fact that many people try to ride a wake/speed too advanced for them.
All the older guys I ride with ride the same as me(setup wise), and I think I ride pretty conservatively, 22mph maybe 23-24 behind my boat, stock ballast in X-2, Avalanche, SSV, 1200 in mine, all 70 feet line, 75 behind my boat. I often think they should dump the ballast and learn to ride a small wake, learn more consistency and the proper edging techniques to get air on a small wake then take it up. They sometimes take falls that are brutal and they get injured seemingly monthly... Big wakes are nice, give ya extra time to float something out, learn something new if you have more airtime, but are unnecessary I believe until you are getting into handle pass inverts and 7s... Ive seen Collin Wright ride an unweighted sport nautique with just a highpole and a stretchy rope, he did 3s and 5s, switch and regular and a few inverts and the water was anything but glass...

With the new Malibu 247 we were running at 90 feet with some local pro's. the ballasts were loaded and the wedge was down. They said they could use another 5-10 feet. it was nuts the kinda air they were getting. The new malibu throws a massive wake, and its shaped awsome. the boat legally holds 18 people.